the art of living
by shadows and sunshine
Summary: Teddy Lupin isn't all that he appears to be.' Teddy, rubies, Victoire, and a farmhouse. -oneshot-


This is another one-shot written for the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges Forum, for the Clue Challenge. It wasn't quite as fun as the other one, but I still liked it a lot. Enjoy!

xxx

_the art of living_

_Prompts: Teddy Lupin, ruby, farmhouse_

Teddy Lupin isn't all that he appears to be.

If you were to look at him, you'd think that he was a tall boy, probably about the age of eighteen (which he was), who (hopefully) was quite good-looking, whose hair was an odd color of turquoise.

Compared to all the things that were true about him, what you could tell from looking at him was a tiny fraction—maybe one-one millionth of all the odd facts and quirks that he possessed.

Just looking at him, you wouldn't know that when he comes home every night, after he greets his grandmother, he likes to have a glass of warm milk. Not many people know this because it's actually kind of embarrassing.

Just looking at him, you wouldn't know that his grandmother calls him "her little diamond in the rough," unique and special. But Teddy doesn't see it that way. He's sure that there are tons of grandmothers out there that call their grandsons by that old-fashioned phrase, so he doesn't feel special or unique, or really anything at all.

Just looking at him, you wouldn't know that he liked to come to this old barn near the Burrow—just an inconsequential, decaying farmhouse—and just sit, sometimes read, but mostly just be quiet and think.

Just looking at him, you wouldn't know his parents were dead. You wouldn't know that he was an orphan. You wouldn't know that sometimes he stayed up late at night thinking about the gentle man with graying hair and the pink-haired woman with a bright smile that he'd never even known.

And just like that, Teddy is an outsider.

He's not the only orphan in the world—and he's probably better off than most, because he has friends and family and even a _girlfriend, _for God's sake—but watching Harry give Lily a piggy-back ride or kiss Al on the forehead or just look at James with a kind of love and admiration that Teddy would never have.

He isn't anyone's son—there is no one to call Daddy and no Mom to insist that he bring a sweater because it'll get cold (well, his grandma does this, but it's not the same), no staying up late at night reading, sandwiched between the two of them on the couch (Harry and Ginny do this for Lily when she has nightmares), and most of all, no one that will ever care that much in the same way about him.

And he's had eighteen years to get used to this, but it still seems like there's not enough time.

And so now that Teddy's sitting in his favorite barn with his favorite book in his lap, there seems like ages and ages to wonder how his life might have been different, yet he'll never be satisfied with whatever he dreams up because it won't be _real. _

"Hey, stranger."

He blinks and looks up, a familiar freckled face staring down at him. "Hi, Victoire."

She's the last person he wants to see right now, but at the same time she's the only one that might have a chance of understanding, so he doesn't drive her away, and she sits down beside him.

"Don't look so surprised to see me," she says dryly. "Everyone knows you come up here, just none of them have the guts to follow you."

"Maybe you have too much 'guts' for your own good."

She cocks her head. "Gee, no one's ever said that to me before."

"So much sarcasm in such a little girl. You must've had part of your brain removed to make room for it," he teases.

"Ha ha." She crosses her legs and leans back against the decaying wall. "But seriously, Teddy, what are you doing here?"

"Just thinking. You might be unfamiliar with that concept."

She rolls her eyes. "You're not going to get me to go away, so you might as well tell me what's wrong."

"Get comfortable."

Her tone softens with her next words. "Teddy. You can tell me."

He would, but it seems to obvious—she knows what's bothering him, they all do, and it's the same thing that'll bother him every day for the rest of his life. "It's nothing."

She shakes her head and blinks. "Just come right out and say it. I don't care."

Teddy is silent. His pain speaks for itself.

"It'll help," she says. "I promise."

He blinks. Her advice is odd, but he decides to follow it, to say the obvious, even if it won't make it go away, and, if anything, it will make it all the more apparent. "My parents are dead."

Her hand moves to rest gently on his bent knee.

"Do you want to be alone?"

"No."

Victoire is quiet for a while. "Do you want to cry?"

"No."

She's quiet for a little while longer this time. "You want to go run around in the field and then make out like they do in movies?"

"Yeah."

She gets to her feet and offers him her hand. He takes it and allows her to pull him up, their hands still locked together.

Without warning or another word, she starts off running and he has no choice but to follow her. And running in the perfect grassy fields beside the Burrow towards the perfect fiery sunset seems so corny and so cliché, but maybe those movies know what they're talking about, because it feels _good._

His parents are dead and he misses them, like he always will, but he's still here, and he's still alive, and his fingers are still entwined with those of the most beautiful girl in the world.

And that's when he realizes that he's not a diamond in the rough after all, but a ruby.

xxx

Bleh. That was my first time writing about a next-gen character, and…I honestly didn't like it that much. I lovelovelove Teddy/Victoire, but I don't really think this came out right. Oh well. The title comes from a quote by Henry Ellis: "All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on." I think it fits the one-shot perfectly.


End file.
